CFP: [Postcolonial] ACLA 2008 Conference

Papers sought for the following panel for ACLA, 2008.The conference, "Arrivals and Departures," is to be held at CaliforniaState University in Long Beach, CA from April 24-27, 2008.Please submit papers marked for this panel directly through theconference website:http://www.acla.org/acla2008/

Deadline: December 3 2008

Other Locations: Globalization and New Modes of MovementThis panel considers the question of the local in relation to emergingnotions of mobility. We will begin with the premise that in the era ofglobal capital, the very idea of movement must be reconsidered. Iftheories of diaspora, migration, and exile are largely conceptualizedaround the movement of physical bodies across concrete geographicalterrains, they remain inadequate as conceptual frameworks for analyzingthe complexities of contemporary modes of movement which function incrucially different ways. It is our intention to bring togethercomparative perspectives on the politics of location that trace linkagesbetween older forms of domination (colonialism, chattel slavery,indentured servitude, etc.) and emergent modes of global control whichseemingly defy the traditional logic of movement (outsourcing, callcenters, transnational corporations, remote warfare, etc.). Whilestructures of movement have changed, what nevertheless remains constantis the extent to which new technologies continue to involve conquests ofspace, both physical and virtual. With this in mind, we are particularlyinterested in considering how otherness is represented as â€œalienâ€ in botholder and newer models of domination. We seek to examine the extent towhich under the terms of uneven distribution and flexible capital â€œotherâ€locations and spaces are increasingly flattened and made seemly so as toprivilege a discourse of uniform consumption. At the same time, there isalso the sense by which the notion of what is â€œalienâ€ is no longer tiedto any particular crossing of geographical and geopolitical borders. Thecharge of being â€œalien,â€ then, is newly unhinged from national andlocational spaces, so that the â€œalienâ€ is just as likely to be foundabroad as within the dominant geopolitical space. Drawing oninterdisciplinary cultural, visual and literary studies, we seek toconjoin strategies for thinking about British colonial/postcolonialcontexts with American neocolonialism and imperialism in the Global South.